Age No Barrier To Travel, Book By Pair Proves

December 30, 1985|By Ramsey Campbell, The Orlando Sentinel

Until Helen Wolfe`s Adventure Bound was published this month, she never gave a thought to her approaching octogenarianism. Adventure Bound (Professional Press, $19.95) details the 79-year-old woman and her 82-year-old husband`s recent adventures trekking through the wilds of South Africa, backpacking in the rugged New Zealand countryside and bicycling across France.

``But my publisher told me they`d play that up,`` she said. ``I`ve never given any thought about my age before. I`ve certainly never thought about myself as elderly.``

The ``story behind the story`` attracted Professional Press owner Marty Foner to the book. ``Here is a couple in their 80s who have been married 56 years and are doing things people in their 30s would have second thoughts about,`` he said.

Neither Helen Wolfe nor her husband, J. Emerson ``Eme`` Wolfe, who took the color photographs that illustrate the 253-page book, betrays many signs of such chronological age. They keep in shape for their arduous travels by bicycling 10 to 15 miles a day around Mount Dora, Helen said.

Since 1978, when the couple moved to Mount Dora from Ohio, the Wolfes have explored New Zealand, South America and the Galapagos Islands, Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia, the Canary islands, China, Japan, Bali and, last year, South Africa. Perhaps their most routine vacation was a bicycle-barge trip through France.

``There are so many fascinating places in the world left to explore,`` Helen said.

The Wolfes plan a trip to England via cruise ship in May to celebrate their 57th wedding anniversary; they expect to return on the Concorde. And they are mulling over plans to travel to the Australian outback next summer. Eme said he`s got his heart set on one day walking on the moon.

Neither can understand their more sedentary peers. ``Too many people want to rust out, not wear out,`` said Eme.

Their exotic vacations also have been dangerous at times. Helen almost lost her life seven years ago when she slipped on a wet rock while tramping down the 13-mile Mitford Track in New Zealand.

``I took one sickening look at the raging Arthur River below and the 300- foot steep gorge,`` she wrote in Adventure Bound. ``Casting about frantically for anything to grab hold of I let out a terrible scream: `I`m going, Eme! I`m going.`

``How, with a 15-pound pack on his back, his camera around his neck and wearing a poncho, he was able to catch my disappearing shoulders, I`ll never know. But he did, and dragged me inch by inch onto the slippery rocks.``

Last year, they were unnerved by a bomb threat aboard their plane to South Africa.

``Sure there were moments of danger, but when you look back even they are rewarding,`` said Helen.

``All life is a risk unless you just want to sit at home,`` agreed Eme.

The Wolfes never have been ones to sit at home, and their interest in travel is long-standing. When they married in 1929, Eme gave Helen a set of travel books as a wedding present, and during the Depression years they traveled vicariously.

Eme was an organic chemist who eventually owned his own plastics company and managed others. His work gave them opportunites to travel to Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa and the Middle and Far East -- both for business and pleasure.

When he retired, their interest in traveling intensified and they began to plan a series of major expeditions -- one or two a year.

``The idea of writing a book was rattling around after the second or third year,`` said Helen. ``But it wasn`t until after our China trip (in 1982) that I really began thinking about it seriously.` `

The book was written at the urging of the Wolfes` granddaughter, who suggested that Helen turn the accounts of their travels that she gave to family members into a full-fledged travel book.

While Adventure Bound is her first book, Helen is not a novice writer. She has had poems published in several anthologies and has won awards for her writing; Eme has been an amateur photographer for many years.

The book is the publisher`s first as well. Professional Press is a Mount Dora firm that has been publishing tax-related material for a limited market. Marty Foner said his company is trying to reach a general readership market with Adventure Bound.

Five thousand copies of the book have been printed, and are available by mail from Professional Press, P.O. Box 1384, Mount Dora, Fla. 32757. Advertisements for the book have been placed in Modern Maturity magazine and several travel publications, and Adventure Bound should be on the retail books shelves shortly after the first of the year, Foner said.